The Charge

"I'm the daddy now!"—Carlin (Ray Winstone)

Opening Statement

Iconoclastic British director Alan Clarke made only a handful of films until
his untimely death in 1990, but he will always be remembered for Scum, an unforgettably harsh condemnation of
the state of juvenile prisons. After its BBC premiere was halted over concerns
of the realistically sadistic content, Clarke remade the film for theatres, and
the movie gained a legendary status among British teens as a no-holds-barred
story of sex and violence, earned in part no doubt, by parents who forbade
younger children to view it. Scum, presented here in both its versions,
is the crown jewel of Blue Underground's new five-disc The Alan Clarke
Collection. Although this box set doesn't cover Clarke's entire output, it
does give North American audiences a peek at the director's most uncompromising
films—Made in Britain, The Firm, and
Elephant—which all tackle violence, criminality, and racism in
1980s Britain from different, but equally fascinating angles.

Facts of the Case

Each version of Scum takes us into the
cruel world of borstals (British juvenile prisons) where the guards and wardens
are often more dangerous than the inmates. Carlin (Ray Winstone, Quadrophenia) and two other inmates
are transferred to a new borstal where they are abused, attacked, and belittled
by the guards and their fellow prisoners. Experienced with these kinds of
facilities before, Carlin uses a few quick strikes of violence to rise to the
rank of "daddy," a leader among the others who controls the trade of
money and cigarettes flowing in and out of the institution. The others are not
so lucky, and find themselves drowning in their tyrannical surroundings.

Clarke's 1982 telefilm Made in Britain plays like something of a
prequel to Scum, as there's no doubt that the young neo-Nazi skinhead
Trevor (Tim Roth, Reservoir Dogs,
in his acting debut) has a borstal stay in his future. Broadcast by the BBC as
part of a series called Tales Out of School, Made in Britain is a
reaction to Margaret Thatcher's conservative reign in the early 1980s that tried
to ignore the violence and racism of the insurgent youth culture. Smashing an
East Indian family's windows lands Trevor in a halfway house, but the teenage
thug is determined to play by his own rules and he continues to break windows,
steal cars, huff glue and in one scene, even defecates on his police files.
Trevor's unwavering belief that he must constantly challenge and work to destroy
a cruel society he did not make is contested by the social workers at every
turn, but it seems the only one that can crack his fanatic anti-social assault
is the boy's overworked parole officer.

Gangs of rioting soccer fans are the main subject of Clarke's The
Firm. Real estate agent by day and the leader of a group of football
hooligans by night, Bex Bissell (Gary Oldman, The Professional) wants to team his boys
with two rival gangs in anticipation of a huge multi-country brawl at the 1988
European Championships. But when he nominates himself as the leader of a
national organization, Bex's counterparts, Yeti (Philip Davis,
Alien3) and Oboe (Andrew Wilde, Nineteen Eighty-Four)
refuse to comply, believing that only one firm should be allowed to represent
England in Munich. Each group attempts to prove their mettle for the job in
increasingly violent attacks, as Bex's wife Sue (Lesley Manville, Topsy
Turvy) begs with him to give up the life of violence that has begun to
affect his young family.

The final film in the set, Elephant eschews narrative techniques to
present a forty-minute killing spree in Northern Ireland. A condemnation of the
separatist violence that erupted in the 1980s, the film presents the viewer with
18 separate killings, all performed with different actors who walk pointedly
down corridors, through buildings, and on city streets to find their target,
coldheartedly squeeze the trigger, and walk away.

The Evidence

Of all the excellent films presented in this amazing release, Scum is an absolute must-see film, a fiery
indictment of Britain's borstals that is both completely of its time, and
universal in its message. Signaled by Ray Winstone's haunting threat of
"I'm the daddy now—next time I'll fuckin' kill ya!" Scum
takes a scalpel to the system to show how the guards and prison directors turn a
blind eye to prisoner on prisoner violence to uphold the natural hierarchies
that emerge in lockdown. The authorities are more interested in keeping everyone
in line rather than rehabilitating them, and Clarke's masterwork is an
unforgettable portrait of a social system that isn't only broken, it's been
shattered into pieces and ground under the heels of misinformed bureaucrats and
corrupt guards.

With several different prisoners to focus on, the film gets surprisingly in
depth in its dissection of the problems in these prisons. Both versions find
Clarke going to every corner of the institution to tell many different stories.
Not only is racism dealt with, but so are illiteracy, the inadequacy of the
system towards pre-teen offenders, sexual violence, religious oppression,
suicide, and toward the end, the film even goes so far as to suggest that the
inmates and guards are both locked into a cycle of violence and faulty
correction that they are both essentially prisoners of.

Although each film was shot essentially from the same script, there are a
few differences between the two versions of Scum presented in this set.
Terry Richards takes over for David Threlfall in the role of a non-conformist
prisoner named Archer, and one scene of violence toward the end of the film
becomes far more graphic. Despite the increase in freedom that Clarke seems to
have enjoyed in his second attempt, I enjoy the BBC of version of Scum
slightly better, as the later version changes the setting from a dark and dingy
borstal to a more modern, impersonal institution slightly less fitting to the
squalor and degradation on screen.

Made in Britain is entirely The Tim Roth Show, but I'll be damned if
it doesn't make for an amazing 75 minutes. Any American film would be
hard-pressed to match the die-hard punk ethos that the film delves into, and
that's wholly attributable to Roth, who is unbelievably excellent as the angry
skinhead Trevor. Made today, Roth's foul-mouthed and offensively racist
performance would have a difficult time even getting on cable.

Part of what Clarke does so well as a filmmaker is to take distinctly
unlikable characters and to make them charismatic and sympathetic. You can't
help but want this completely unsociable, racist thief to turn his life around,
and when Trevor goes entirely out of his way to screw his own future over time
and time again, all you can do is cringe. Trevor knows he has had a hand in his
present situation, but conversations with the halfway house director hint at a
thread of underlying truth in the way Trevor challenges the ideas behind
Thatcher's social policies.

A dire warning about juvenile violence, Made in England is at least
equally compelling as Scum, featuring indelible images of Tim Roth
running through the streets and tunnels screaming "bollocks" and
"wankers" at cars and passersby. The film also features opening and
closing blasts of punk rock from The Exploited—one of the few Clarke films
to offer any sort of music—that heightens the nihilism even further.

Playing a slightly more subdued and complex character, Gary Oldman is not
quite as riveting in The Firm, but he still puts in one of his finest
performances ever as the vicious Bex. In this film, Clarke turns his eye away
from young offenders and looks at a family man who obviously never outgrew his
violent fantasies.

Although the problem of soccer hooliganism is foreign to most North American
audiences, Clarke does a fine job in pulling viewers into the film to show the
self-destructive mindset of the three top British firms, who progress from spray
painting and petty vandalism to car bombs, straight razors and guns over the
course of the story; a progression that mirrors the real-life firms that had
recently turned from weekend warrior boy's clubs into organizations that
resembled Mafia crime families. The Firm is ultimately disturbing in the
way it delves into the mindset of the violent fringe groups, and is best
illustrated by a scene in which Bex, alone in his childhood room adorned with
thousands of soccer magazine clippings, repeatedly smashes his pillow with an
iron rod while chanting the names of his rivals.

A huge soccer fan himself, Clarke is very specific in keeping the
hooliganism and soccer separate, suggesting that one has very little to do with
the other. The end of the film even has several members of Dex's gang explaining
for the cameras that they don't care what sport they are associated with,
they're far more interested in bashing heads for Britain both at home and in
tournaments around the world no matter the occasion—a frightening prospect
indeed.

Gus Van Sant was obviously inspired by more than just the name of
Elephant, easily the most difficult entry in this set. The film's 18
bloody IRA killings, one after another with only a few brief lines of dialogue,
make for an effective way to draw attention to the killing and carnage without
politicizing things. In every given situation, we're not even let on to which
side is pulling the trigger—it's just an outright condemnation of the
brutality and inhumanity happening in Northern Ireland.

Elephant should be far more interesting concept than a finished film,
but Clarke begins to have a bit of perverse fun with suspense by creating
variations on his main theme, obscuring just who are the victims and the killers
in a given situation. Making an audience "guess" at the ultimate
conclusion of each confrontation is a move that could have trivialized the
impact of the film, but it works to maintain attention, and does nothing to
dispel the dread that permeates each scene. Make no mistake—if you're
hoping to revel in a gory parade of killing as though Elephant was some
kind of political slasher film, this is not for you, as the violence is
primarily designed to make the viewers look away in disgust. Although I applaud
Blue Underground for including it in the set, Elephant is far too
downbeat and disturbing to lend itself to repeat viewings, especially since the
twists, designed to keep the viewers interest throughout, are no longer
surprising the second time around.

One of the reasons that the BBC banned Scum was because they felt
that some viewers might think confuse the film's stark cinematographic approach
with documentary filmmaking. If there's one noticeable thread running through
this entire set, besides the obvious connections of violence and criminality,
it's the development of Clarke's unique style. Both versions of Scum get
much of their power from the unflinching and steady portrayal of the horrors
behind locked doors, but with Made in Britain you can see Clarke
beginning to experiment with sweeping Steadicam photography that comes to full
fruition with Elephant, which gets a bolt of energy from kinetic shots
that coldly slide around the stalking hit men.

As telefilms from the 1980s, each film in this set is presented full frame
with a mono soundtrack, with the theatrical version of Scum as the sole
exception—it gets a spiffy anamorphic 1.66:1 treatment, and an upgraded
5.1 sound mix. Overall, the films look as good as they should, with a slight
level of grain and muted color tones that are really inseparable from Clarke's
gritty style. Scum's BBC version is intentionally murky, and probably
comes off the worst of the bunch, but it's wholly appropriate to the subject
matter and as I mentioned earlier, helps the film rather than hinders it. The
sound in this set is well-rendered and always clear, although most North
American audiences will want to turn on the English subtitles to navigate
through some of the accents and British slang terminology that can be confusing.
Scum's new surround mix is a little extraneous, but those that want to
listen to this option will find it does a respectable job in diverting some
atmospheric effects to the back channels. There are no issues at all with Blue
Underground's excellent presentation of these films.

On to the plentiful extras: The fifth disc in the set contains an hour-long
made-for-TV documentary called Director: Alan Clarke. Made just shortly
after his death for the BBC, this is a solid look at Clarke's film style that
features interviews from the likes of Danny Boyle, Tim Roth, Ray Winstone, and
other notable figures that Clarke worked with, as well as some archive footage
of the man himself. The highlights here are a few peeks at some of the other
films Clarke made that haven't been included on this set, as well as some great
behind-the-scenes footage of Elephant which focus on the use of the
Steadicam in the film.

Besides a few still galleries, a trailer for Scum, there are short
video interviews with Tim Roth, Scum's writer Roy Minton and producer
Clive Parson and some comments about Elephant from Gary Oldman, David
Hare, and Molly Clarke. The rest of the extras come in the form of commentaries,
which range across the board in terms of subject matter, but not quality.
Winstone delivers interesting tracks on the theatrical version of Scum,
as well as selected scenes in the original, which is also covered thoroughly by
producer Margaret Matheson, and actors Phil Daniels and David Threlfall in a
second commentary. These tracks delve into almost every aspect of the film,
including the notorious BBC ban. Roth takes the reigns for Made in
Britain, delivering an acting-centric discussion of the film, which is
balanced out by a second commentary in which Margaret Matheson returns with
writer David Leland. Both are worth a listen, but ultimately it's Matheson and
Leland who give the picture a little more context. The fourth disc contains both
Elephant and The Firm, so there isn't much room for much else, but
Trainspotting director Danny
Boyle, who produced Elephant, adds a commentary track anyway. While
ultimately absorbing, there are several few pauses in this track, as Boyle gets
lost in the action on screen.

Closing Statement

I have the sinking feeling that many people are going to pass up this
fantastic box set simply because Alan Clarke is not as well-known on this side
of the Atlantic. That's a definite shame, since his work definitely deservers a
wider audience. Scum is unrelentingly
brutal, a varied and detailed study of a crumbling social system that could not
be more highly recommended, but Clarke's later films are not to be missed
either. Blue Underground has definitely done the director a great service with
this engaging retrospective.

The Verdict

Not guilty. The Alan Clarke Collection is an absolute kick in the
bollocks.